China has become more sophisticated, but not all of their habits have. This new wealth has led to an increase in Chinese tourists who have money, but no manners.

Chinese tourists and their crude behavior have received a lot of bad press. They wash their feet at the Lourve, shovel plates of food in Thailand, deface a 3,500 year old Egyptian temple, throw hot noodles at a Thai flight attendant – the list goes on. These tourists are now blacklisted from traveling. I hang my head in shame. All I can say in disgrace is, “Yea, I know but we’re not all like that.”

What reason could there possibly be for them to behave so repulsively? I am not justifying their actions. I just want to understand. China, as a country, has grown and developed at such a rapid pace that the people, clearly, have not caught up in mindset and etiquette. The influx of cash and investment has quickly made its way to China’s countryside. A growing population have the money, but not the manners, to travel abroad and represent themselves to a world outside of their country where certain actions are just not be acceptable in public.